Force ISPs to shut down, spy on, or block access to websites deemed objectionable by EU ministries.

All members of the EU should increase their use of psychological operations and propaganda. In particular, the EU should use the "Syria Strategic Communication Advisory Team" (built on UK Home Office psyops expertise ) set up in Belgium when possible.

The EU should increase internal advertising to increase sensitivity to human rights and values of a diverse population (aka avoid the type of "hate speech" that Charlie Hebdo published).

The crack down of firearms should be intensified. Existing firearms laws didn't have any impact on this attack. The attackers were well armed. Perhaps more aggressive laws will fix that.

The EU should coordinate with the US on cyber initiatives to develop a more comprehensive way to track, screen, and detain global travellers.

“The Islamists, which PEGIDA has been warning about for 12 weeks, showed France that they are not capable of democracy, but instead look to violence and death as an answer,” the group said on its Facebook page. “Our politicians want us to believe the opposite. Must such a tragedy happen here in Germany first?”

The slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, which was apparently attacked for publishing cartoons that mocked the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, could not have come at a more opportune time for PEGIDA and its activists. Their weekly protests against the perceived “Islamization” of Germany had been gaining momentum for months, but not quite as fast as the public and political backlash against them.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had even used her televised address on New Year’s Eve to condemn PEGIDA’s activists as having “coldness and even hate in their hearts.” Since mid-December, counterdemonstrations calling for tolerance and openness toward Muslim migrants around the country had begun to drown out PEGIDA’s rallies in Dresden.

But that trend could now be reversed. “The movement itself will definitely interpret [the attack on Charlie Hebdo] as a vindication for its very existence,” says Carool Kersten, who studies Islam at King’s College University in London. So when the group holds its next demonstration on Monday in Dresden, it will have a lot more momentum, and a new rallying cry, thanks to the terrorist attack in neighboring France. The coming months could then see the emergence of a powerful new force on the right wing of German politics.

The marchers wanted to demonstrate unity after the attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, police officers, and a kosher supermarket. The French government said the rally turnout was the highest on record. World leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, EU President Donald Tusk, and Jordan's King Abdullah II joined the beginning of the Paris march.

"We will bring together all of our allies to discuss ways in which we can counteract this violent extremism that exists around the world," Holder told reporters. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said after the meeting that European interior ministers had agreed to boost cooperation in an effort to thwart further jihadist attacks. "We all agree that we need to put in place better control on certain passengers, on the basis of objective criteria and with respect for fundamental liberties and without disrupting cross-border travel," he said.

He said Europe needed urgent progress in establishing a European Passenger Name Record database, which would facilitate the exchange of data about passengers between member states. "We are convinced of the need for such a tool, to follow those who travel to terrorist operating theaters or who return from there," he said, adding that this database would also be useful in the fight against other serious crimes.

Cazeneuve said the Internet needs to remain a space for free expression, but that Europe should fight against abusive use of the web to spread hate speech, anti-Semitic messages and the recruiting of vulnerable young people for violence. "We need to work more closely with Internet companies to guarantee the reporting and if possible removal of all content that amounts to an apology of terrorism or calls for violence and hatred," he said.

It didn’t happen overnight. It took many years of neglect for our liberties to be given away so casually for a promise of security from the politicians. The tragic part is that the more security was promised — physical and economic — the less liberty was protected.

With cradle-to-grave welfare protecting all citizens from any mistakes and a perpetual global war on terrorism, which a majority of Americans were convinced was absolutely necessary for our survival, our security and prosperity has been sacrificed. It was all based on lies and ignorance. Many came to believe that their best interests were served by giving up a little freedom now and then to gain a better life.

The explosion just before lunch killed 20, including the girl, and injured 18, according to the police. Boko Haram did not immediately claim the attack, but the Islamic insurgents have increasingly used young girls as human bombs as they carve an African “Caliphate” from the plains of northern Nigeria.

Today, Boko Haram controls about 20,000 square miles of territory - an area the size of Belgium. Within this domain, the black flag of jihad flies over scores of towns and villages scattered across the neighbouring states of Borno and Yobe.

The latest conquest was the fishing town of Baga on the shores of Lake Chad, which fell to the Islamists last Wednesday.

“For five kilometres (three miles), I kept stepping on dead bodies until I reached Malam Karanti village, which was also deserted and burnt,” one surviving fisherman, Yanaye Grema, said. Boko Haram’s fighters have now achieved mastery over 11 local government areas with a total population exceeding 1.7 million people, according to the official 2006 census.

Even so, critics say that default would be disastrous as no one would lend to the Greek government ever again. Nonsense. History suggests that it would be a matter of months before the investment bankers came knocking on the door. Nor is this simply the result of a powerful mixture of greed and short memories. What lenders fear is not the history of recent default but the prospect of future default. Once a country has defaulted, the prospect of another default in the next year or two is actually lower.

The second factor that has changed is that the German government now believes that the eurozone is able to withstand a Greek departure from the euro without much ill-effect. What they feared in 2012 was contagion from Greece to Spain, Italy and Portugal. They reckon that with the various support mechanisms in place that is now less likely.

However, BofA Merrill Lynch said: “We see a growing risk of WTI (West Texas Intermediate) and Brent falling to $35 and $40 per barrel near-term to force either non-Opec producers or Saudi to cut.” Saudi Arabia’s influential oil minister Ali Naimi has asserted that the kingdom – the world’s largest exporter of crude – intends to persist with its current strategy of keeping its spigots open to win back market share regardless of how much oil prices fall.

“Whether it goes down to $20, $40, $50, $60, it is irrelevant,” Mr Naimi said in an interview with Middle East Economic Survey late last month.

Prankster Josh Paler Lin recently went undercover with his camera team to follow a homeless man begging next to a freeway on-ramp, to whom he gave $100. Expecting the man to use the money on booze after he was seen stepping foot into a nearby liquor store, Lin and his crew were shocked to observe the man going around a city park handing out food to other homeless individuals, who it was later found didn't even know him.

After filming the man in secret from afar for a few hours, Lin decided to approach him to apologize and explain the situation. The man, surprised to see Lin again, gave him a big hug and thanked him for his generosity. He proceeded to explain how, despite not having a home or much money himself, he gets great joy from sharing with others in need. "There's things money can't buy," the man explained.

The man proceeded to tell his sobering story, which in all reality could happen to any one of us given the perfect storm of harrowing circumstances. "Basically, I was living with my parents," he explained to Lin. My stepdad had cancer, and they had hospice… but the insurance only pays so much. I quit working because I had to be available. So he passed away, and then two weeks later my mother passed away from kidney failure. The building they're in is being sold, the condo, and I all of a sudden found myself homeless. That's been like four months now."

Homelessness is a growing epidemic in America today, with up to 25 percent of homeless people employed but not making enough money to have a place to live. More than 33 percent of homeless people are actually children - the average age of a homeless person is nine years old - and roughly half of all homeless women and children are homeless because they are fleeing domestic abuse.

Yet due to Salman’s own deteriorating health – those close to the palace say the crown prince is suffering from the early stages of dementia – a campaign is growing within Riyadh to bypass Salman and give the throne to Deputy Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, 69, another of the king’s half brothers, should Abdullah be deemed unfit to rule. Both the crown prince and the deputy are seen as identical ideologically, and it is expected that their respected reigns would be short, as “place holders” for the next generation.

“Practically everyone in the state is in unanimous agreement that we will be going forward with either Prince Salman or Prince Muqrin on the throne in the future,” says a Saudi diplomat in Amman, who preferred to remain unnamed due to the sensitivity of the issue. While there is a broad consensus in Riyadh over who should inherit the throne immediately after Abdullah, Saudi insiders and observers say the true intrigue and power struggle is emerging over the appointment of the next crown prince – and with it, the future of the Saudi monarchy.

The prospect of any period of instability is prompting concerns Saudi Arabia would be increasingly vulnerable to challenges from its regional rival, Iran, and from the region-wide conflict with the self-described Islamic State (IS), in which the US-allied monarchy plays a pivotal role. Internally, too, advocates for social change in Saudi Arabia fear instability would create a reflexively conservative political environment that would be inhospitable to their demands.

This is only the second confirmed case in which a wholly digital attack caused physical destruction of equipment. The first case, of course, was Stuxnet, the sophisticated digital weapon the US and Israel launched against control systems in Iran in late 2007 or early 2008 to sabotage centrifuges at a uranium enrichment plant. That attack was discovered in 2010, and since then experts have warned that it was only a matter of time before other destructive attacks would occur. Industrial control systems have been found to be rife with vulnerabilities, though they manage critical systems in the electric grid, in water treatment plants and chemical facilities and even in hospitals and financial networks. A destructive attack on systems like these could cause even more harm than at a steel plant.

It’s not clear when the attack in Germany took place. The report, issued by Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (or BSI), indicates the attackers gained access to the steel mill through the plant’s business network, then successively worked their way into production networks to access systems controlling plant equipment. The attackers infiltrated the corporate network using a spear-phishing attack — sending targeted email that appears to come from a trusted source in order to trick the recipient into opening a malicious attachment or visiting a malicious web site where malware is downloaded to their computer.

Once the attackers got a foothold on one system, they were able to explore the company’s networks, eventually compromising a “multitude” of systems, including industrial components on the production network. “Failures accumulated in individual control components or entire systems,” the report notes. As a result, the plant was “unable to shut down a blast furnace in a regulated manner” which resulted in “massive damage to the system.”